‘All We Imagine as Light’ Review: A Compassionate Ode To The Self-Haunting Spirit of Mumbai

All We Imagine as Light is a glowing directorial debut from Payal Kapadia; her film is illuminating the world yet struggles to get a proper wide release in her home country. Her film is an ode to Mumbai but most importantly to the spirit of Mumbai, that haunts itself. The reality and illusion, the possibilities and impossibilites of the Mumbai dream cum nightmare. The politics are germane to the plot, the background socio-economic critique is rarely foregrounded, for most importantly it’s a film about sisterhood, harmony and beauty of communion, made with compassion. Read our All We Imagine as Light review below.

The film offers not just a view of Mumbai, but Mumbai itself, an inside-out look from the perspective of working-class population. It doesn’t fit the box that stereotypes the stereotypical representation of working class in an arthouse film, a super-stereotype; for it’s neither exploitative like Slumdog Millionaire nor schmaltz laden preachy melodrama like Laapata Ladies: and god knows what the Film Federation of India meant by their kinky comment w.r.t. Laapata Ladies, describing “Indian women” as “a strange mixture of submission and dominance”, to justify it’s Oscar-entry, which naturally didn’t make the shortlist (pretends to be shocked).

The film is a double first: the first Indian film to win a Grand Prix at Cannes and Kapadia the first Indian woman to do so. For a country that lives and breathes cinema, it’s concerning that it took- how many years since Swaham? 30 years?- that long for another film to participate in the main competition. Nonetheless, her win sparks a wave of optimism and hopefully India undergoes some internal new wave movement of its own since Hindi cinema, to put it generously, is burying itself every Friday: the extraordinary lack of creativity in storytelling is hilariously infuriating.

In the industry full of makeshift amateur parrots, Kapadia stands amongst the rare breed of sensible Indian filmmakers with a distinguished love for the medium. Even though as a feature director it’s her first swallow, but I have no doubts that in future she is going evolve, though I’m curious to see a second swallow before calling it a summer.

The opening shots familiarize us with the geography of the film, setting up the location as a character; no wonder Kapadia admires Claire Denis so much, the sensibilites are on the same wavelength yet the style is distinct; the rice cooker a connecting link, interlinking Denis-Kapadia-WKW in a spiritual way. A loose analogy would be saying that Kapadia’s film does for Mumbai what Wim Wenders’ Perfect Days did for Tokyo.

It’s interesting to see the expansion of her documentary-infused-with-fiction style of storytelling- as seen in A Night of Knowing Nothing– in this film in a more polished manner. The voice-over gives an air of poetry to the film, imparting depth without preaching.

The characters of the film have interiority, their life mundane but never dull. The film is steeped in melancholy, yet it’s never sentimental; the lonesome blues of the Mumbai life pursued fruitfully to an aesthetic end. The deficiencies in the film (which are few) originate from the script, despite the interiority the film struggles often with characterizations; the dialogues are relatively weak. However, the brazen remark by FFI calling it “technically poor” is mean-spirited, obnoxious and demands elaboration.

The plot is rather simple but the rich intricacy with which it’s presented on screen makes the difference; the simplicity itself is an effective tool to convey the sentiments. The characters and the city reciprocally illuminate each other with metaphorical light. The sisterhood among the three ladies illuminating their lives with solace amidst the brazen nature of city and time.

Prabha, a self-contained Malayali nurse shares her apartment with another Malayali nurse Anu, soaking in the fragrance of the flowers in the garden of her youth: sparking a young love with Shiaz. Both of them are consumed by their work during the day, while night offers compensatory serenity. Tying the apartment together is their psychic companion, the meow-cat. As for the third lady in this three-body problem, her name is Parvarty; a small lady against a big corporation which seeks to build a tower over her small house.

The glow of these characters keeps each other warm when around them the forces of degradation ensnare people into corporate modernity. Kapadia plays with form, and the film goes not exactly venture full throttle into the realm of magical realism in its second half but something close to that. The Mumbai saga serves as an important preface to the relaxing and magical atmosphere of the village in Ratnagiri. The mystical feeling that Kapadia captures with the way she frames nature, the mangrove trees, the peepul trees, the ominous cave and so on, is her strength: even though not all her evocations worked for me yet I really admire the attempt.

Topshe’s score provides an appropriate sonic range to the film, and I loved the application of Emahoy Tsegué-Maryam Guèbrou’s “Homeless Wanderer” in the Anu-Shaiz subplot. As for FFI, esta gente no sabe nada; the consistency of their unremarkable picks for Oscars is truly remarkable, if only they were held accountable for their picks and their weak statements.

As for Payal Kapadia, no está mal, señorita: with this film, she breaks the skin with a swift blow and reaches the core of the apple; and at its core resides the conqueror of all maladies, a dignified acceptance of suffering and a simple notion of love.

All We Imagine as Light was directed by Payal Kapadia, and stars Kani Kusruti, Divya Prabha, Chhaya Kadam, and Hridhu Haroon. The film debuted at Cannes Film Festival in competition on May 23, 2024, and released to audiences publicly on November 15, 2024.

Thanks for reading this All We Imagine as Light review. For more news, stay tuned here at Feature First.